offers an incisive look at the early life and writings of Gershom Scholem (1897–1982), the father of modern Jewish mysticism and a major 20th-century Jewish intellectual. Daniel Weidner offers the first full-length study, published in English, of Scholem's thought. Scholem, a historian ofthe Kabbalah and sharp critic of Jewish assimilation, played a major role in the study and popularization of Jewish mysticism.Through his work on the Kabbalah, Scholem turned the closed world of mystical texts into a force for Jewish identity. Skillfully drawing on Scholem's early diaries and writings, introduces a young, soon-to-be legendary intellectual in search of himself and Judaism.